


Almost Too Kind, or: Prometo

by bluespring864



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Developing Relationship, First Kiss, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 08:28:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15626751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluespring864/pseuds/bluespring864
Summary: Yuzu reflects on growing up, Javi is acting strangely, Brian is exasperated, and it all works out in the end.The cliché was that it was ‘lonely at the top’, and if that would have been the case for Yuzuru, he would only have had himself to blame. But he had been spared that, through no effort of his own, because, as he rose to the top, Javi had been a faithful companion.





	Almost Too Kind, or: Prometo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sophiahelix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiahelix/gifts), [boobskirt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boobskirt/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Entorno](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14083635) by [sophiahelix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiahelix/pseuds/sophiahelix). 



> I never finish anything as quickly as I finished this. But I'm on holiday and basically wrote for four days, then reread it for four days more. I hope you like it!
> 
> This is inspired by sophiahelix's beautiful story Entorno, and by a comment on that story refering to an interview where Yuzu called Javi 'almost too kind for competition'. This story would not exist without either the Entorno story or the comment, so it is only fair that I gift it to the two people who wrote them.
> 
> I also watched Javi's beautiful exhibition "Prometo" about a hundred times while writing this.
> 
> I possibly took liberties with the make-up of TCC; I've never been and have only seen a video of the interior.
> 
> I know next to nothing about Japanese culture, unfortunately. Please tell me if I made a terrible blunder.
> 
> This fic assumes that Javi, who told media that he has sold his apartment in Toronto, will spend less training time at TCC than in previous years, even if he’ll still be participating in a few competitions during the upcoming season.
> 
> Oh, and apparently the Revolution on Ice dates clash horribly with Yuzuru's competitions; let's just assume that isn't the case for the purpose of this story...

The difference with Javi was, Yuzuru decided, that even if Javi liked to win as much as the next guy, he never enjoyed seeing others lose.

Yuzu had thought this a weakness, not so long ago. Now, he was ashamed of himself. Sometimes, growing up wasn’t all that fun. You realised things about yourself you would rather have continued to ignore.

Because suddenly the victories tasted bitter when he knew he had been fuelled, had been spurred on by the failure of others.

Wasn’t it so much more noble to draw only on your own strength in order to secure a win, to treat others with kindness and mean it, to be gracious in defeat?

Yuzu had once been so sure he needed to think of his rivals as adversaries – treat them politely, yes, only a fool would needlessly provoke, after all. But never more than that.

Watching Javi in the beginning, he’d been amazed at the way his new rinkmate interacted with people in their shared environment.

Javi only ever blamed himself. Well, he might not always agree with the judges’ decision, but he respected and accepted it and moved on. And yes, he might look a bit jealous sometimes when a competitor did something amazing – but never spiteful. Mostly, he seemed excited: excited to be there, excited to see what all the others could do, excited to compete.

That last one was the difference right there – Yuzu wasn’t so much excited to compete as he was excited to win.

He’d always thought that was the better way.

Now he wasn’t so sure anymore.

Strangely enough, his behaviour had changed long before he even began contemplating changing his mind.

With Javi, it was nearly immediate – though Yuzu remembered his initial mistrust when that guy from Spain, whom Yuzu would have noticed even had he been a much worse skater, because he was so damn _beautiful_ –  had not only agreed to train with him with minimal fuss, but had also greeted him with the words “You’re amazing, you know”.

 _He has to be lying_ , the boy Yuzu had been then had thought. But no. In the weeks and months to come he’d realized that Javier Fernández had been genuine. Always so genuine. Like he didn’t know how to be anything else.

So Yuzu had to give up his adversary-concept for this one. There was just no way he could convince himself that Javi was vicious, and needed to be defeated at all cost.

In the strange headspace one could get into when the stakes were high, Yuzu convinced himself for a while that it was that difference in attitude on his part which explained why he lost to Javi sometimes. Another thing to be ashamed of in retrospect, because he hadn’t been giving due credit to Javi’s great skating.

But even then, in moments where this warped perception prevailed, he could never be mad at Javi. The idea that Javi’s kindness could be devious, could be a tactic to throw him off his game, was too crazy even for Yuzu’s strange mind.

Quickly, without even realising it at first, he began adopting some of Javier’s behaviour towards the other skaters.

He talked a bit more (for the first time making an effort to say things in that ugly English, and unprompted at that), or talked with gestures, when words failed him, goofing around not only with his Japanese teammates, but also, on occasion, with other skaters; not shying away immediately when one of his rivals was among the group.

Javi still seemed to think him reserved, as absurd as that might sound when talking about someone as showy, exuberant and quirky as Yuzuru was. But Javi was right, Yuzu often was reserved in the ways that counted. He wasn’t purely nice for show, but he tried to keep everything superficial, didn’t want those people around him to become too real to him.

Once, early on, when Javi was trying to pull Yuzu out of his shell a bit, getting him to interact more profoundly, Yuzu told him to leave it be, adding,

“Be that way, does not work for me.”

“What do you mean, it doesn’t work for you?”

Javier had sounded so confused, and Yuzuru had wanted to yell at him.

“What do I mean? It doesn’t help my skating is what I mean! Stop being so nice, this is a fucking competition, act like it and fight, for heaven’s sake.”

He hadn’t done that, of course.

He’d just continued looking on as Javi made, in his then opinion, rather a fool of himself. As Javi was nice even when people weren’t so nice back at him. As Javi, like everyone else, dutifully carried his skates everywhere so they couldn’t be manipulated and paid attention that no-one was messing with his water bottles, but looked saddened every time he did it, as if it pained him to be suspicious of his fellow skaters.

‘His fellow skaters’. Yes, that was the way Javi thought, and sometimes, Yuzu had held a little contempt for him because of it.

Oh, he was so ashamed.

 

~---~

 

It was just that it now felt utterly wrong to inwardly belittle the others for their mistakes, to begrudge them their strong points, always with the thought of: _How can I copy that (or at least top it), because I know I’m better than him,_ or: _That move there isn’t half as impressive as it could be if you were able to land your jumps_ , or, from a long time ago now: _I need that quad salchow, so I can beat him with it, let’s see if he’s stupid enough to let me._

The cliché was that it was ‘lonely at the top’, and if that would have been the case for Yuzuru, he would only have had himself to blame. But he had been spared that, through no effort of his own, because, as he rose to the top, Javi had been a faithful companion. Even when Yuzu had gotten it into his head for a while last year that he needed to focus, and tune Javi out, Javi had always tried with a friendly word or a smile, no matter how often he got shut down. Until Yuzu had finally come around, cursing his own stupidity, because he’d made nothing better by pulling away, had, in fact, made everything so much worse. Because this was how they worked. Together. Javi had always been by his side.

And now he was leaving him.

Not him, specifically, but Yuzu had no problem at all with making this about himself.

Everybody else did it too, make everything related to Javi about Yuzuru, and that was not okay. Yuzu should be the only one allowed to do that. Sometimes, he would have liked to abandon his culture’s politeness entirely and ask those reporters what exactly they thought they were doing.

The times when Yuzu got a thrill out of being seen as the superior one were gone. Mostly. Yes, the flattery was still nice, and of course he still wanted to win, but at times he got almost angry with himself for overshadowing Javi with those wins.

In the end (and that was a relatively recent realisation, too, which annoyed Yuzu no end, how could he not have known that form the start) it was not only about the scores, about jumps and components, but also about the individual skater, about the performance as a stand-alone entity, a work of art.

Yuzuru had been creating works of art for years before he really understood – 2013 and 2014 he got it a little bit, but mainly around 2015, 2016, watching Javi, during those difficult injury-ridden years when, depressingly enough, watching had sometimes been more fun than skating. In retrospect, he marvelled at the fact that the programs of previous years had worked so well, when often the only thing he’d consciously been thinking about had been winning (or impressing the audience, when it came to the exhibitions).

The artistic side had always been just _there_ , and he had never appreciated that gift enough, because he wanted to feel like he’d earned everything. So he’d worked hard on that as well, as much as one could with something so elusive – and that kind of work was good and necessary. Up to a point. He could count himself lucky that he’d had people around him who told him when he was about to ruin it, overdo it.

Anyway, what he was getting at, what he wanted to tell all those reporters, was that Javi and him were very different skaters, and that Javier Fernández was amazing and beautiful in his own right.

Javi had always been gracious, but recently the whole thing seemed to wear at him a little bit – he’d just become the first Spanish skater ever to win an Olympic medal, which on top of that was only the fourth Winter Olympics medal for Spain overall, and still they asked him about ‘that incredible Yuzuru Hanyū’ without fail.

Javi’s answers had gotten shorter, terser.

It saddened Yuzu, and it also stung more than a little.

He’d made the mistake, a few years back, that first season they’d trained together, to write an e-mail to the company Tracy had suggested they hire for compiling their international press coverage, and ask specifically for Javier’s interviews to be translated as well, still not really believing at this point that the guy was as nice as he looked.

It had backfired, because Javi had said a lot of nice things about him, resulting in the fact that Yuzu liked him, liked him much more than he would have wanted to at the outset.

And now, somehow, the situation was reversed. Javi was suddenly polite only, where his comments used to come from the heart, and Yuzu, well, Yuzu was paying more and more outrageous compliments to Javi to make up for it. Maybe it had happened because of Yuzu keeping his distance for a while there last year, when things got intense, what with the Olympics coming up, and his injury… but no, it had started some time before that, this reversal of roles.

Whatever Javi might think (and Yuzu saw his sceptical looks), those compliments of his were honest. Javier Fernández had made him a better skater but, more importantly, he’d made him a better person. No, that was not quite right. Yuzu had become a better person, because of Javi, but it was not like Javi had had that goal in mind. Javi had just been Javi.

Yuzuru had changed without even noticing it, but when he did, he was glad for it, even if it soured some of his earlier victories for him.

He’d left his old way of thinking behind completely by the point they got to PyeongChang. He’d wanted to do so for a while now, but superstition had made him cling to it.

And… surprise, surprise, he could win this way, too, and feel much better about himself.

Now if only there wasn’t the constant background pain of Javi’s impending departure, combined with the punctual pangs of distress when another interview came out and Javi’s responses to what he’d once jokingly called ‘the obligatory Yuzu-question’ got more and more generic and unenthusiastic.

In fact – and Yuzu had to learn it from an interview on Spanish TV, because Javi was only rarely responding to messages anymore, even when Yuzu pulled out his best English – Javi had already moved back to Spain, would only come back to Toronto sporadically.

So, when he texted “Greetings from Toronto” with a picture of Pooh-san at the rink, in one of his increasingly pathetic attempts to get Javi to talk to him, Yuzu was surprised to see an almost immediate reply.

An airplane emoji.

Well, still no words, but that could really only mean one thing.

Javi was coming back. At least for a while.

Yuzu did a little jump for joy, ran up a flight of stairs inside the Club, and promptly bumped into Brian, who only laughed good-naturedly and asked what was going on.

“Javi’s coming, yes?”

Brian got a strange look on his face as he responded.

“Yes, he should be here tomorrow. But you knew that, or didn’t you?”

He tilted his head in question.

Yuzu felt as if it was a personal failure when he had to reply that he’d only just found out.

 

~---~

 

Brian had scheduled completely separate practices (otherwise, Yuzu would have known earlier about Javi’s impending arrival).

It kind of made sense to Yuzu, because he was already moving on to more intensive training, while Javi was coming straight from a long break. It might be frustrating to have the direct comparison in that moment, but Yuzu was still disappointed.

And in the end, Javi watched his practice anyway. Yuzu looked over to Brian, and suddenly there he was.

Looking a bit sleepy; glasses on and with that beard that made him seem older.

“Javi!”

Oh, how he’d missed that smile.

It didn’t last as long as it used to, though, was already fading when Yuzu skated over at full speed and extended his arms to hug him, glad there was no barrier to hide behind.

Javi acquiesced, but, here too, something was wrong.

“Hey Yuzu”, he said, and the words sounded flat. So much so that Yuzu, still refusing to let go of the hug as Javier was already pulling back, saw Brian flinch a little.

Inside, Yuzu was flinching more than a little. It was more like he’d just gotten punched in the gut.

He felt a tiny bit better about himself when he went back to practice, and sensed an additional set of eyes on him for the duration of it. Furtive glances confirmed that Javi was indeed looking, his intense gaze following Yuzu’s every move.

When Brian called time, Yuzu nodded at him, but didn’t leave immediately. He could see Javi’s strange and hurtful reticence to be close to Yuzuru war with the fact that he itched to be on the ice again.

“Come on,” Yuzu murmured to himself.

And Javi gave in.

It filled Yuzu’s heart with joy just to see him skate out onto the ice with broad strokes.

Yuzu skated over, executing a quick turn and smiling at Javi as he continued the backwards movement in order to keep looking at him.

“Welcome back,” he said quietly, the words coming out more emotional than he’d intended, just a little waver in his voice after all that subtle rejection. Suddenly, old Javi was back, with a kind smile and those onyx eyes oscillating into a warm chocolaty brown, drawing you in.

“Feels good to be back.”

Well, that smile was better than anything he’d gotten out of Javi for the last months. Yuzu decided to leave before it would be spoiled again.

“Have a good one, Javi.”

A few steps away from solid ground, some daring spirit compelled him to turn back around and blow the baffled-looking Spaniard a kiss.

Then he hightailed it out of there.

 

~---~

 

Three days later, he wanted to cry in frustration.

Javier was consistently late for his practices, so they didn’t cross paths again, and when Yuzu brought his English exercises with him on the third day and just stayed at one of the big tables near the entrance, Javi quickly sprinted past him on the way in (late again), and somehow also slipped past him on his way out, only calling out a ‘Bye, Yuzu’ from the door.

While he was still staring dejectedly into space after that last incident, Brian came over and sat down beside him.

“What are you still doing here, hm?” he asked, sounding curious, and Yuzu could feel the tears brim behind his eyelids when he looked up.

He swallowed them down.

“Trying to wait for Javi.”

Oh, his voice sounded pathetic.

“Trying to?”

“He left. Ran out, almost.”

Brian raised his eyebrows in that way he probably thought looked subtle.

“I didn’t do anything!”

There it was again, that strange look on Brian’s face. Almost like he had an idea about what was wrong, but couldn’t say it.

“No, I suppose you didn’t, really.”

Should he ask Brian what was going on? No, Yuzuru decided, Brian couldn’t do much more than speculate.

“This sucks,” he settled on.

It startled a barking laugh out of Brian.

“At least your English is much improved recently.”

Yuzu was afraid his smile came out rather bitter.

“Thank you, I practised lots.”

 _For Javi_ , he didn’t add.

They were (or had been, it seemed now) masters of understanding each other with gestures and smiles only, but the fact that his vocabulary was so limited got tiresome, sometimes, when Yuzu wanted to tell Javi something funny that had happened, or what his family was doing, or what he was afraid of, or that Javi had made him a better person.

Yes, he wanted to say those things to Javi.

And no matter that Javi was acting so strangely recently.

Javi was still the only person outside of his family whom he trusted completely.

 

~---~

 

Today, Yuzu had physio early in the morning, and Javi would take the first training spot.

Yuzu finished his exercises impatiently, but not as early as he would have liked.

He sighed contentedly when he opened the door to the rink and heard Javi’s voice. His friend (well, hopefully still a friend) was just getting off the ice, as Yuzu closed the door quietly.

On impulse, Yuzu hid behind the first pillar, his slender form now completely invisible as long as Javi didn’t skate directly into that corner.

“Mierda,” Javier grumbled, loudly. Clearly audible, although he’d just come off the ice four or five pillars down the line from where Yuzu had hidden himself.  Apparently practice hadn’t gone so well.

“Oh, come on, it’s the same as every year, you need to get back into it,” Brian replied in his most reasonable tone, then added,

“Something’s bothering you, though, I think.”

“Something’s always bothering me,” Javier snapped, his accent thicker with emotion, and Yuzu felt guilty for listening in. But he couldn’t stop now, and he didn’t really want to.

“So, what’s with you and Yuzu?” Brian asked, and while Yuzuru was embarrassed that their coach felt the need to intervene, he was kind of grateful as well.

“Nothing.”

“Javier Fernández, that’s bullshit and you know it.”

Wow. Brian never talked to Yuzu quite so directly.

“You are distancing yourself, to put it mildly,” Coach continued.

From where he stood, Yuzu couldn’t see Javi’s face, but he definitely heard the blunt, matter-of-fact tone in his answer.

“It will be easier to leave, that way.”

With his next words, Brian suddenly sounded understanding, much to Yuzu’s surprise. That had been a terrible thing to say, after all!

“Of course. Yes, well… but it’s a bit the coward’s way out, don’t you think?”

Yuzu risked a peak around the corner, in time to catch Javier’s incensed expression, and wildly gesturing hands.

“I’m not a coward!”

Brian relented quickly, though he added something weird.

“No, sorry, you’re not. I just thought you might tell him, instead of –”

Javi interrupted, and Yuzu, though out of sight again, could imagine his expression well from his tone of voice.

“Tell him? Tell him what?”

Brian made an exasperated little noise, that Yuzu, who could be a bit head-strong sometimes (all right, basically all the time), had earned himself often over the years.

“Oh, if you still don’t want to acknowledge it, then forget it.”

What on earth were they talking about?

It got even more confusing when Javi hissed back, his voice going so low Yuzu was struggling to understand it, as much as he was used to Javi’s English.

“I never thought you a hypocrite, Brian. What would you have said, huh, if I’d decided to ‘tell him’ a few months ago?”

Yuzu felt more and more uncomfortable – he was afraid that someone would find him standing there at any moment, he did not understand what was going on, wasn’t even sure what a ‘hypocrite’ was, though it sounded bad, and most of all he hated that Brian and Javi were clearly fighting over something that pertained to Yuzuru.

In spite of Javi’s increasing anger, Brian stood his ground.

“I’d have lamented your timing, but wished you luck.”

_Luck with what?_

“Right.”

Javi sounded incredulous, but also appeased, and maybe this conversation was coming to an end.

Yuzu should be moving away now, should have done so some time ago, but he was rooted to the spot. Perhaps one of them would still say something that could clarify things?

“Right,” Javi repeated, and then there was a thumping noise.

Yuzu had to look again, and saw Javi had slumped against one of the pillars, face hidden in his hands.

Was he crying?

Out of the corner of his eye, Yuzu noticed Brian make a hand motion, and realised the man was looking straight at him, his eyes wide with shock.

Brian brandished his hand once more, shooing him off, and Yuzu didn’t need to be told again. Even though it hurt physically to leave Javi when he was so clearly in distress.

He opened the door as quietly as he’d come in, and slipped out.

 

~---~

 

That evening, he sat on the sofa, watching TV with his mother, and tears began streaming down his face, just like that.

He didn’t succeed in hiding them, and she asked worriedly what was wrong.

Yuzu shook his head and murmured,

“I just remembered again.”

She only nodded, and pulled him close for a second or two, and, oh, he felt like the worst person in the world for letting her assume it was about the earthquake.

But he simply couldn’t tell her about Javi anymore, even if he didn’t really know why that was (he used to, when their friendship had gone through rough patches in the past). He’d panicked, so he said what he knew would work. For years, he’d sometimes just start to cry when the memories resurfaced. By now she would accept it without asking.

What a terrible thing to do, though, using that as an excuse. For a moment, Yuzu was incredibly mad at Javi, for making him resort to such methods, then went back to blaming himself again.

This was a mess.

And he didn’t even know what kind of mess it was.

Brian had texted him earlier, asking how much he’d heard and understood, and Yuzu had responded,

_< Not much.>_

Which was sort of true; he’d heard a lot, but understood almost nothing.

_< You should talk to him.>_

_< How? What you think I tried to do past days?>_

When okaa-san had called him to dinner, he’d left the phone in his room. Now, there was a new message waiting for him.

_< I do not like the idea of doing this, but I don’t see another choice here, really. If you want, I’ll lock you both into the changing rooms after his practice tomorrow. You just have to make sure to be in there at 10:30.>_

Yuzu wasn’t sure either that he liked the idea of a potentially angry Javi locked into a small space, but on the other hand…

_< Yes. Let’s do it.>_

~---~

 

When he’d agreed to this, Yuzu hadn’t thought he’d feel physically ill from nervousness, sitting there alone in the changing room. Brian had come in from the rink a few minutes ago and had locked the door to the hallway, then left again through the second door he’d have to lock from the outside once Javi was in; his only words:

“Good luck.”

Since then, Yuzu had been staring at that second door, a mounting feeling of dread in his stomach.

Javi wouldn’t like this.

But Yuzu wasn’t about to let Javi just drift away from him, either. Yuzu might not be Javi’s best friend (Javi had many friends, friends he surely talked to much more than Yuzu; friends that had not made things difficult by being a competitor also). But Javi certainly was _his_ best friend by now, so of course he was going to fight for that.

Despite the long wait, he was not prepared for the door to open.

Javi came in, eyes on the floor, looking exhausted. Yuzu noticed he’d shaved off his beard. As if that was important right now.

“Leave it be, Brian,” Javi said, half to himself, but Yuzu heard Brian respond from the outside anyway.

“As you wish.”

Two things happened simultaneously.

Brian turned the key in the lock, and Javi looked up, seeing Yuzu on the bench, not even two meters away, hunched slightly forward and staring right back at him, like a deer in the headlights.

Javi opened his mouth, but then registered the turning of the key, and whirled around.

“What is this? Brian?”

No response.

He tried the handle.

“It’s locked,” Yuzu said quietly.

Javier turned back around lightning-fast, as if stung by the sound of Yuzu’s voice.

“I can see that,” he snapped, moving quickly to the other door, trying the handle there, then moving back across the room to his original position, as if a second try would yield better results.

“Is this a plan? A conspiracy?”

Huh. _Conspiracy_. He wasn’t sure he knew that one in English, either, though the tone basically said it all.

Nevertheless, Yuzuru tried his big confused puppy eyes.

Astonishingly enough, it worked. Javier’s anger melted away just like that. Like yesterday beside the rink, he slumped against the wall and slid down, resting his head in his hands.

“I’m sorry.”

The words were a hoarse whisper, his voice not quite steady, which never happened to Javi, really. He sounded like he was apologising for a lot of things all at once.

This time, there was no way Yuzuru could stop himself. He took the two steps that separated them and slid to the floor, throwing his arms around Javi as best he could.

Javi made a noise somewhere between a shocked shout and a sob, and stayed exactly as he was.

Yuzu murmured a jumbled mess of kind words in Japanese, stroked his hands over Javi’s back, pressed a kiss to his temple.

At that, Javi stiffened, then sighed and looked up.

The look in his eyes was incredible. Wild, sad, hopeful, filled with something unnameable that made Yuzu blush instantly.

“ _Te quiero. Oh, dios mío, no sabes cómo te quiero._ ”

Javi clasped a hand over his mouth in shock, and Yuzu did the same. He was pretty sure he’d understood that, despite his Spanish being quasi non-existent.

“What?” he asked faintly, from behind his hand.

Javi, his Javi, looked like he wanted to apologise again; but then his eyes turned steely.

“I said ‘I love you’.”

Somehow, of all the things he’d imagined might be bothering Javi, over the last days, weeks, months, this hadn’t been among them.

Yuzu had never thought it could be something good.

“You have strange way of showing.”

Javi stared at him, and he’d never been more beautiful than in that moment. Tired, sweaty, his hair a mess, his eyes showing his utter incredulousness.

“You’re not mad?”

For the first time ever, and despite the fact that he’d never been in a relationship, Yuzu felt older than Javi.

“No, Javi, I’m not mad,” he said as calmly as he could.

He trailed the fingers of his right hand over Javi’s cheek, pressing lightly. Unconsciously, Javi pushed his head against them, by the look in his eyes clearly astonishing himself with the movement.

“I have never been in love,” Yuzu continued, just as calmly as before, astonishing himself as well. Letting the words flow out just like that.

He watched as Javier’s face instantly crumbled in pain, and hastened to add,

“I don’t know how it has to feel, I want to say. But… I think I’m falling right now.”

 _Wow_ , he thought for a second, quite absurdly, completely pulled out of the moment, _that English practice has paid off._

Then, Javi kissed him, and he didn’t think at all anymore, just felt.

Yuzu had not been kissed by many people in his life, and never like this.

Fiercely, desperately; emotion poured into it and emotion pouring out. Staying passive for such a kiss would have been an impossibility, even had he wanted to.

So he moved his lips with Javi’s, let them yield at first; then pressed back.

So many new feelings, some of them unearthly, some infused with a very earthly lust Yuzu was powerless to resist.

He jumped and flew; and his wings carried him.

 

~---~

 

“You did not plan on telling me.” Yuzu said what felt like hours later, both of them still an awkward jumble of limbs on the floor. It wasn’t phrased as a question; and his tone was as accusing as he could make it.

Javier looked at him with round, wide eyes, and pressed apologetic kisses to both corners of Yuzuru’s mouth.

“I had trouble telling myself,” he replied, and Yuzu frowned in confusion.

“I never loved a man before,” Javi tried to explain. “I kept telling myself it wasn’t real.”

 _Oh_.

“And then, when that didn’t work so well anymore, you tried running away,” Yuzu stated confidently.

Javier cast his eyes to the floor.

“Right on the money.”

“Money?”

No end to his confusion today, apparently.

Javi’s lips tilted up just the tiniest bit.

“Just a saying. ‘Absolutely right’, it means.”

Yuzu grinned.

“Okay. Have to remember that one, then, because it fits me so well.”

Now Javi didn’t even try to reign in his smile, though he rolled his eyes with it.

“ _Eres un diablo_.”

This time, he hadn’t the faintest idea what Javi had said, but it sounded fierce and fond, and Yuzu would take it.

Javi’s hands couldn’t hold still; they moved over Yuzu’s arms and shoulders in light caresses, cupped his face, ruffled his hair. It was distracting, and so it took Yuzu a moment to process Javi’s question.

“No regrets?”

Wow, Javi sounded so uncharacteristically unsure, still. Was Yuzu doing this to him?

He stilled the nervous hands, caught them with his own and brought them to his chest.

“Regrets? Me?”

Yuzu looked forwards; never backwards.

The way Javi stared at him was a little scary in its intensity (which was thrilling Yuzu, of course).

And the little grin that followed melted his heart.

“Oh, I don’t know, now that you’re apparently older and wiser, maybe you’ll do regrets, too?”

Yuzu countered with a fiery stare of his own.

“Did you just call me old?”

It only lasted for half a second, that stare, because then, they were both shaking with laughter.

“How do we get out?”, Javi asked, once they’d calmed down.

“Oh. Didn’t think about that,” Yuzu giggled, again, and Javi sighed, though he failed miserably at looking put-out.

“I think, just call Brian.”

Yuzu pulled out his phone.

Brian answered after the first ring.

_“Are you all right?”_

“Everything fine here.”

The words elicited a blinding smile from Javi. Then a frown. Hm, maybe Brian would hear Javi’s opinion about being locked into changing rooms. Yuzu would have to tell him that he’d helped to set it up, because Brian didn’t deserve that. And Yuzu had a feeling Javi would forgive him pretty easily for almost anything right now.

_“Thank god.”_

Brian sounded very relieved, and Yuzuru thought that he would also have to do something to thank him for his help. It wasn’t every coach that would facilitate his skaters figuring a situation like this out on their own, or even being alone together at all. ‘Skates are weapons, after all’, Yuzu had once heard a competitor say, and had wondered absurdly if it was just him and Javi living in their little fantasy world of friendship, while everyone else was literally being cut-throat.

_“That’s good, because, you know, we need the changing rooms now.”_

Yuzu laughed.

It had taken a while, in the beginning, to understand the way Brian used humour to diffuse tension. But he got it now.

 _“I’m on my way,”_ Brian added, then hung up.

They were still on the floor. Yuzu pulled Javi up quickly.

“I need a shower,” Javi said, then blushed.

That was so _cute_ , Yuzuru thought, before he hypothesised on Javi’s train of thought, and blushed as well. A shower together. It wasn’t that he’d never contemplated it, in all those years of training and getting sweaty. But he’d always locked that idea away quickly.

“Maybe not quite so fast,” he murmured, embarrassed, and Javi looked at him with something akin to shock.

“No, of course not, cariño.”

Though they did not have all the time in the world, either.

“How long are you…”

The lock turned, and they stepped out of their embrace, but were still close enough for Brian to take in the situation immediately.

A look passed between him and Javi, that, in light of yesterday’s conversation (which made so much more sense now), could only mean,

_You told him._

Javi’s answering look was more complex, but pretty clear as well.

_Don’t be smug – Yes, yes, I acknowledge that you were right._

Out loud, Brian said, a bit gruffly, and half averting his eyes, as if, like the skating Dad he was, he didn’t really know how to look at them anymore,

“Congrats, I guess. Now get out of here, the kids are already waiting.”

They didn’t need to be told twice, moving a respectable distance apart before they left the room, in order to not become immediate gossip-fodder for the eight- to ten-year olds.

 

~---~

 

His mother kept shooting him looks.

Yuzu was certain he radiated happiness from every pore; and was distracted on top of it. There was a lot to think about.

“Something happened,” okaa-san finally stated, and Yuzu worked hard to stop his smile from saying more than he wanted it to.

“Javier’s talking to me again.”

That was the understatement of the century, but okaa-san only nodded.

“Did he explain?”

In a moment of frustration, weeks ago, he’d told her that Javi wasn’t really responding to his messages anymore; with the righteous indignation of someone who was sure he hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d been annoyed at himself afterwards, because okaa-san hadn’t felt like the right person to talk to about this (now he understood better why that was) and so he hadn’t mentioned it anymore afterwards. Though she must have realised over the last days that things were still awkward.

“It was a misunderstanding.”

Yumi tilted her head, as if listening after something he hadn’t said with words, but she didn’t ask further, and Yuzu retreated back into his own head.

“Three weeks,” Javi had said he’d be here for this first training session, when Yuzu finally got around to asking.

They’d gone to the little park/garden area behind the rink, found a tree in the shade (the weather was still summery), a secluded corner spot where they would see it if someone approached.

By unspoken agreement, they talked about little things – how their families were doing, their plans for the upcoming season, Javi’s ice show…

In the end, it was Yuzu who spoiled the light mood by asking his question. He had to know, there was nothing for it, but he didn’t anticipate Javi looking so very melancholy when he gave his answer, almost hopeless.

Yuzu had kissed the look away, because he could.

Now, however, he wondered if Javi thought three weeks was all they had.

That wouldn’t do.

He would have to do something about this immediately.

Where was his laptop?

An e-mail to Brian, a few Google searches, and a lot of frustrating modifications of an increasingly complex Word document later, he had a working plan.

He thought about sending the whole thing to Javi now, but something made him hesitate. Restraint hadn’t always been his forte in the past, but Yuzu was learning to pace himself.

Let’s wait and see first.

 

~---~

 

Yuzu had never seen someone be as exuberantly happy and frightfully miserable at the same time as Javier was right now.

The last few days had been a strange whirlwind of feeling.

He revised his evaluation of falling in love pretty quickly. It wasn’t so much that he was falling, more that he was noticing he had done so a long time ago.

‘Falling’ was a bad word for a skater anyway, why couldn’t that stupid English language just call it ‘flying in love’, or something?

He told Javi this, and made him laugh; pretended not to notice the sad look that followed.

When Javi had told Brian that he wanted to distance himself to make it easier to say goodbye, Yuzu had found the idea absurd. Now he got the feeling Javi was still saying goodbye, and as he watched him tear himself apart over it, Yuzu understood a bit better what he’d meant then.

Only, there was no reason for it.

Yuzu really had to get around to telling him that.

But the right moment didn’t seem to come – this whole thing was so new to him: Javi took him out on dates – dinner, a walk in the park, a movie… It seemed cliché, like the get-together montage in a romantic film, but it was Javi, so it was all quite wonderful, notwithstanding the occasional sad and wistful look. Yuzu was amazed Brian didn’t lose his mind with them. They were so tired for training in the mornings. Okaa-san didn’t say anything, either, which was very suspicious, especially when he came home late two days in a row.

There were kisses, embraces, furtive touches of the other’s body. Those seemed weirdly familiar, because they had followed each other’s movements with their eyes so many times over the years. Still, as well as they knew the other, there were many new details to learn.

It was picture perfect.

Too perfect.

_What if he’s made his peace with the idea that it’s only these three weeks?_

_Oh, don’t be silly Yuzuru Hanyū, he told you he loves you._

“This is stupid,” Yuzu decided emphatically.

“Hm?”

They were in Javi’s hotel room, playing Mario Kart. In between ‘making out’, as Javi had called it.

Javi looked up at his comment and blinked slowly, as if Yuzu’s face was somehow as captivating to him as Javi’s could be to Yuzu. _Oh_. Perhaps it was?

“You don’t want to play anymore?”

He pointed at the console. Yuzu clarified.

“No. You, you are stupid.”

Javi’s eyes widened comically.

“No, no, no, not like that. Oh, horrible English.”

There it was again, that melancholy look in Javi’s eyes, even as he smiled a fond smile.

“Stupid is that you… you act like your flight back to Spain is end of the world.”

There was fire in Javi’s eyes, all of a sudden. He stood up from where they were lazing on the bed, and turned away, much to Yuzu’s dismay.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

His voice was quiet, but dangerous.

“You act like it,” deep breath, “…like it will be over. Do you not want to continue this?”

Yuzu’s voice was quiet as well. Tentative.

Javi whirled around, the fire in his eyes flaring up even more.

“Of course I want to. It is not a question of what I want.”

A frown crept on Yuzu’s face. He was confused again.

“Why not?”

Javi leaned heavily against the wall opposite the bed Yuzu was now kneeling on. Somehow, he found himself in this position. He’d tried to be of more equal height, and therefore more equal footing for the discussion, but he supposed it might look like he was pleading. And Yuzu sensed that he wasn’t above that in this case.

He watched Javi sigh and cast his eyes to the floor.

“Look, it isn’t easy, this long-distance thing. I’ve tried and failed before.”

It made him sound so much older, so much more experienced. _But that doesn’t mean he knows better_ , Yuzu thought stubbornly.

He didn’t want to think about the girlfriends. Especially Miki. He had tried to avoid seeing them together, as much as he liked them both – another thing that became much clearer in retrospect.

But Javi was still speaking.

“And I thought you would not… that you didn’t do this sort of thing… you never showed any indication you would want to be in a relationship while still competing.”

Well, that was just plain… stupid, as he’d said.

Yuzu got up, stepped down from the bed, closer and closer to Javi, until their breaths mingled. His hands landed on the wall, to both sides of Javi’s head, framing him with his arms.

“I also did not know I was in love with Javi before.”

He felt Javi draw in a sharp breath; heard the hissing noise that accompanied it. There was no response, except for the tears that slowly started to make their way down Javi’s cheeks.

Yuzu wiped them away with his thumbs; then did one better and kissed them away. The sound that came out of Javi was a mixture of a laugh and a wheeze.

“Sorry. Why am I… you’re the one who’s always crying.”

It sounded almost accusing.

“Not now,” Yuzu said cheerfully, and Javi laughed again. Then, he whispered,

“Do you really mean it?”

And Yuzu got angry with him.

“Yes I mean it! How can you doubt it?”

“How can you be so sure?”

Javier sounded just as incensed.

“Are you not sure?”

Yuzu didn’t think twice about asking.

The silence that followed was awful.

And it stretched.

He felt the tears behind his eyelids, looked downwards; and no, he would not cry, he would not.

Very quietly, Javi said,

“I doubt myself every day. Not whether I’m in love with you – “

Yuzu’s head snapped up.

“But whether we should be doing this. Whether I will make it crash and burn, and you with it.”

Yuzu sniffed. The tears would stay uncried.

“You are stupid.”

This time, he meant it just like he said it. And Javi didn’t even protest anymore.

“It’s too late for your worry. If you leave…”

His voice wavered again, damn it.

“If you leave right now, my heart will be broken. So maybe you want to see me skate with broken heart?”

Oh, why did he have to say that so provocatively?

_Because you want to know._

Javi was shaking his head, his eyes full of tenderness all of a sudden.

“It would either be very ugly or very beautiful. But I never want to find out.”

He was lucky Yuzu already loved him; saying things like that.

 

~---~

 

When they’d calmed down, Yuzu told Javi about his plan.

Well, he showed him the document on his phone, and let him figure it out.

“How?” was all Javi asked, when he realised it was a joint schedule for the coming months, with an astonishingly high total of days where they would or could be in the same place.

“I know the competition dates of course. I got your training dates from Brian, and your show dates from the internet. And then I might have gotten your meetings schedule for ‘Revolution on Ice’, as well.”

Javi just stared at him, the question in his eyes the same as the one he’d voiced before, and Yuzu felt a bit sheepish.

“Um, I possibly called to say I want to observe, because I think, maybe adapt things for my own producing? And that I will skate two dates in exchange for the help? They are in the schedule, too.”

“Yuzu!”

“Yes?”

He smiled that sweet smile that he’d sometimes used as a weapon in the rink in the past.

“Did you run that by your team?”

A grin was spreading over Javi’s face, as if he knew the answer already.

“I told them afterwards. I mean, they work for me.”

Javi was grinning broadly now. Then he frowned. Yuzu could see it on his face, as he took in what this would mean for Yuzu –  a few days off from training during pre-season, those ‘distractions’ he’d always avoided… and that flinch right there meant that Javi remembered how Yuzu had once shut him out, because he had to ‘focus’.

Three, two, one, here it comes.

“Are you sure about this?”

And another flinch, because Javi realised while he was still speaking that the question sounded way too much like the one he’d asked a little earlier.

Yuzu watched it all unfold with a smile. Oh yes, he was very fond of this man. And sure of his answer, now that he was sure of Javi. It had surprised him himself, how soon he’d known this was what he wanted to do. Time to put poor nervous Javi out of his misery.

“Yes, yes. Sure about this part, too.”

Javi still looked like he wanted to beat himself up about this choice of words.

Yuzu tilted his head, trying to explain this clearly.

“You know well, there are different methods of training. I see you do it differently, very differently for years, and it works. So I think, maybe I want to relax a little bit. Especially if there’s good reason.”

He smiled at a still baffled looking Javi. _So cute._

“And I found best reason. Besides, you know I couldn’t skate for months last season, and in the end it was fine.”

Way to downplay his second Olympic gold.

Javi seemed to think so, too, because even as his worried eyes said ‘but you weren’t fine there, for a while, you were _hurt_ ’, his grin made a reappearance at Yuzu’s way of phrasing things. But the serious expression in his eyes stayed, was even transformed into something akin to awe, when he found the words to reply.

“How are you so amazing?”

Yuzu shrugged, faux-modest.

“Amazing? I don’t know. I’m just Yuzuru.”

“Same thing.”

Javi got a kiss for that.

Or twenty.

 

~---~

 

Brian finally snapped at the beginning of the second week.

“All right. Yuzu, out! This is Javi’s practice.”

Yuzu pouted, but mainly to make Javi laugh, which worked like a charm.

“And you…”

Brian rounded on Javi at the sound.

“Get your head out of the clouds and focus. I’ve let you waste nearly a week, make up for it.”

Yuzu got up from the bank he had been sitting on to watch Javi, and slipped out the door quietly.

Okaa-san was already waiting outside. She’d insisted on them having lunch with Javi while he was here.

Yuzu seized the occasion to bring her up to date on all the things he was changing in his schedule. He’d been plotting and planning with Javi over the last few days.

“Yuzuru…”

“I am an adult,” he replied, before she could get any further than his name. It was what she liked to say to him when he relied a little too much on her: _You are an adult, Yuzuru._

“Yes you are,” she sighed. He smiled at her exasperated expression, and tried to explain.

“It’s only… I realised exactly how serious I was when I said to Javi that I couldn’t do it without him.”

_I just didn’t understand how exactly I meant it when I said it._

“Oh, don’t tell me this is about skating, Yuzuru.”

Well.

“Everything is about skating, in a way. Yes, yes, I know what you’re asking.”

He told her a little bit – how could he avoid it, really, at this point – but made her promise not to bring it up with Javi (“It’s not even been two weeks. Please, you’ll scare him.”)

“Hey,” Javi suddenly said from behind them. He looked from one to the other, and then he looked like he wanted to run and hide, their faces apparently reflecting clearly what they’d just been talking about.

Lunch was awkward. Yumi kept her promise of not talking about it, but that made conversation stilted for a while, and her knowing looks were excruciating.

Javier could laugh about it, though, when they were alone, much to Yuzu’s relief. He also seemed anxious about not making a bad impression with Yumi, which was very sweet.

“How was training, after I left?”

At that, Javi pulled a face.

“Brian said he can’t wait to see me get into coaching and realise how hard it is.”

“That bad?”

“No, he just had to vent for a bit. I really was distracted by a certain someone.”

Yuzu grinned.

“You say the sweetest things.”

Javi looked at him, apparently speechless.

“What? I heard it in a movie.”

“You are impossible.”

Yuzu decided that was a compliment. The fond tone of Javi’s voice certainly said so.

 

~---~

 

It was strange, the way Javi looked at Yuzu as if he’d hung the stars. It was a different look from other people, who might show admiration because he was famous, or because he was a great skater – well, that second one, Javi acknowledged as well, but his look was not like that.

If – god forbid – Yuzu got injured tomorrow and would never skate a competition again, Javi would still be looking at him like this.

Yuzu understood this with a sudden clarity that shocked him, that made him realise why Javi, who always had been the calm and collected one out of the two of them, was so nervous, was so afraid of messing things up.

He cursed himself for never having bothered with relationships before; because this was no rehearsal. This was the real thing, and who better than a figure skater to appreciate the value of rehearsing things before it really counted.

_Life is not a figure skating routine, Yuzu. In life you can get it right on the first try, as implausible as that might sound._

In the end, it was the look that decided him, because it told him that here, unlike during a routine, he could make mistakes and blunders, and be forgiven for them just like that.

They were lying on the hotel room bed, facing each other, catching their breaths from a long kiss, and Yuzu reached out to open the buttons of Javi’s shirt.

“Javi. I want to have sex with you.”

He hadn’t meant to state it quite so bluntly, but Javi didn’t flinch, or laugh. He looked up with hooded eyes from where he’d been following the progress Yuzu’s hands made with the buttons.

“Yes.”

He said it quietly, and something in his eyes made Yuzu think that…

Yuzu spoke first.

“Do not ask me if I’m sure. I’m very sure.”

Javi smiled with his eyes only.

“Maybe I’m not so sure myself…”

Shocked into immobility, Yuzu’s fingers clutched one of the last buttons, and twitched so hard a second afterwards that they ripped it off.

“Hey, Yuzu.”

His hands disappeared in Javi’s slightly larger ones.

“I only meant that I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Yuzu frowned at him.

“Because I’m a man,” he said slowly.

“Yes,” Javi sighed.

“Do you want to stop?”

_Please don’t want to stop._

“No!”

Ok, that was clear.

Yuzu twisted his hands out of Javi’s grasp, opened the last button of the shirt and slid his hands over Javi’s bare chest, dusted in a fine covering of hair. He felt the thrill of being able to touch like this course through his body, and Javi…

Javi inhaled sharply.

“We’ll just do what feels good, yes?” Yuzuru murmured, still astonished that he was the calm one in this scenario. He let his hands roam in wider circles.

“Yes,” Javi sighed again, and Yuzu chuckled, remembering an often-heard phrase.

“Don’t overthink it,” he whispered, and Javi uttered a scandalised,

“Oh my god, will you leave Brian out of the bedroom, please. Please.”

But he was grinning, as well.

They started so excruciatingly slowly that Yuzu wondered if they would ever be getting around to pulling all their clothes off; but then he decided to press the heel of his hand against Javi’s erection, fascinated by the way it strained his trousers.

Suddenly, everything was frantic movement, until they were completely naked, Yuzu kneeling over Javi; looking down as he pushed their lower bodies together and held himself up on his arms.

“ _You are so beautiful_ ,” he said in his mother tongue, forgetting that Javi had picked up quite a bit of it over the years.

Javi’s smile was beatific.

“ _You are the beautiful one_ ,” he replied breathlessly in Japanese, frowning in concentration and getting it almost entirely right. Yuzu didn’t think he _was_ right, though. He had no illusions that people would be calling him beautiful if it wasn’t for what he could do on the ice.

But that look was in Javi’s eyes again, and he relented.

“ _If you say so. Then I guess you are the sexy one._ ”

Javi let out a hoarse laugh, understanding him easily once again, and Yuzu didn’t know if he should be grateful to Miki or jealous of her for all the words she’d gotten to teach Javi, and the moments in which she must have done so.

All thoughts of that left his mind when he shifted a little, and felt hot hardness brush against his own.

Javi groaned, a string of rapid-fire Spanish spilling out of his mouth, and Yuzu would have complained about the unfairness of being unable to understand, if it hadn’t sounded so fucking hot.

He moved his hips slowly, instinctively. It felt so much better than rubbing off against the sheets, as he sometimes did, when his body insisted. This was a different thing entirely.

Yuzu’s head swam, as Javi’s hands roamed down his back, and to his ass. When they squeezed, he let out a little cry. He wanted to go faster, so much faster, but…

“Lube?” he hissed, and Javi’s eyes went so wide he would have laughed, if he hadn’t been so turned on.

“Want to go faster,” he clarified, because Javi had clearly gone _there_ in his head, and that was not for today.

“Right.”

Was it bad that Javi sounded more relieved than disappointed? Yuzu’s head was whirling, he was overthinking it himself now. He got up automatically when Javi indicated his sports bag (“There’s Vaseline in there somewhere”).

The little tin was easy enough to spot, and he got it open on the first try.

This would do, he guessed.

“Next time, I bring own stuff,” Yuzu muttered, crunching up his nose disdainfully, and then laughed at the look on Javi’s face.

“I use it on my own, you silly man,” he said. (Still in English, because he could say things like that in English now, and somehow it was less embarrassing in that language to speak plainly. Maybe English did have its merits sometimes.)

 _You wouldn’t have any right to feel jealous anyway, Javi, you’re the one with the past relationships._ Even if they’d been with girls, where Yuzu could never understand the attraction more than theoretically. Except for a few brief moments where he’d seen how Javi looked at them, he could never have truly seen those girls as rivals, because Yuzu just wasn’t wired that way. Maybe if he had been, he would have realised earlier how strongly he felt for Javi.

But Yuzu had always been good at pushing attraction to the back of his mind, and so he hadn’t noticed how this ever-present feeling of attraction towards Javi grew and simmered into something else entirely.

“Yuzu?”

 _Oh_.

He was just sitting there on the bed, with the open jar in his hands, like someone had hit ‘pause’ on his movement while he sorted his thoughts out. Javi had propped himself up on his elbows and was watching him a bit worriedly, and Yuzu cursed himself for disappearing into his own head right now. Javi was insecure about this, for whatever reason. He’d better focus.

He smiled at Javi slowly (in a sultry manner, he hoped), pushed his fingers into the lubricant and then spread it on himself, hissing a little as his hand made contact, his eyes not leaving Javi, who followed the movements and swallowed heavily.

 _Yes_. That was good.

Yuzu grabbed the tissue box from the nightstand, wiped his fingers off and threw the jar at Javi.

“Now you,” he whispered, then let himself fall down on his back.

“And then you go on top.”

“Bossy.”

Javi sounded like he had a smile on his face, but he also sounded breathless, and Yuzu twisted his body to see him touch himself. He watched, mesmerised, then looked up to see Javi was indeed smiling at him, looking just that little bit incredulous that this was real.

He swung his leg over to straddle Yuzu, and… aaaaah, the lube made it so much better when he pushed them together. Javi leaned forward, putting weight onto his hands, copying Yuzu’s earlier position, and started a spine-tingling rhythm.

They moved together in sync, easily, Javi cursing in Spanish, Yuzu surprising himself with little breathless moans and cries that spilled out of his mouth just like that.

He snapped his hips up harder, pressing his lips together with the forcefulness of the movement.

“Fuck, Yuzu,” Javi whispered, and English was a good language for dirty words. They sounded right in English, and Yuzu resolved to learn a lot of them, as soon as his mind wasn’t spinning out of control anymore.

Javi suddenly slowed down, the touches electrifying, but not enough, not enough. Yuzu squirmed and, to his shock, heard himself plead.

“Faster, Javi, please. _Please_.”

Oh, Javi liked the sound of that; his eyes were blazing. He denied Yuzu for just a second longer, and then picked up speed, and this was it, no way was he going to last longer.

“Javi. I’m, ah, I’m going to come.”

The words just tumbled out, unintentionally; in which language he wasn’t sure. But understanding crossed Javi’s face, and then Yuzu watched in fascination as Javi stiffened almost immediately, stilled; his head thrown back, the wet stickiness of his come spreading between them.

Yuzu’s eyes were riveted on the perfect arch of Javi’s throat as he pushed up one last time and came as well. It felt so, so…

His mind shorted out, and restored itself to order with blissful slowness.

They lay there for a while, panting.

Finally, Javi rolled onto his side, grabbed a few tissues to wipe himself off.

“Can I?” he murmured, and Yuzu’s blissed-out mind needed a moment to process that he was asking if he could clean him up, too.

“I can do it,” he said, embarrassed, but Javi responded with a hoarse, “No, let me,” that left Yuzu no chance but to nod.

Javi’s hands were gentle, almost reverent.

It made something move in Yuzu’s heart, that soft touch, it did.

Even more room for Javi.

They dozed for a bit, lazily touching now and then, and Yuzu said quietly, half-asleep,

“Is it always this comfortable? Sex?”

He’d been so worried it would be awkward, that he would be awkward at it; but this, all of this had felt wonderfully easy.

Javi looked startled for a second. Then he whispered,

“No.”

“No, Yuzu. Only with you.”

 

~---~

 

They were killing it at practice for the next few days.

As they were skating side by side, Yuzu expressed his astonishment over that fact, because he wasn’t sticking to his routines, meal plans, didn’t do his mental exercises, did nothing, in short, to justify these astonishing results.

Javi only laughed.

“It helps to be happy, cari.”

“For you, maybe.”

Yuzu scrunched up his face, adding,

“I always functioned different than you.”

Now Javi looked stricken.

“You think it doesn’t help you to be happy?”

Yuzu trailed a hand over his cheek. Watched, entranced, as Javi closed his eyes for a second.

“Apparently it does. I rarely stop to think if I’m happy.”

Javi seemed to have something to say about that, but they were interrupted by Brian.

“Hey lovebirds”, he said, though he kept his voice down.

Gabby was already warming up at the side of the rink. If she had looked up right then, they would have been pretty obvious even without Brian’s comment. Yuzu took his hand away.

“Yes, Brian?”

“You were off in your own world there, and we’re not finished yet.”

They nodded dutifully, guiltily.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea; having you skate together again.”

Javi rounded on him immediately.

“What? Except for just now, we were focused! And good, right?”

Brian sighed.

“Yes, almost too good. That’s the thing. I don’t want to see Yuzu fall heavily back to earth when you leave in a few days.”

He succeeded in immediately making a look of guilt appear on Javi’s beautiful face.

“Hey,” Yuzu interjected, “I don’t think I will. I’ll have good memories until Javi comes back for next training.”

They both looked at him, Javi with melancholy eyes, though there wasn’t that crippling sadness in them anymore that had made Yuzu worry in the beginning. Brian, for his part, had a curious look on his face when he clasped Yuzu’s shoulder for a moment, and said quietly,

“You’ve grown up so much, young man.”

Yuzu was never sure how much of a compliment that really was – it implied there had been a lot to grow out of in the first place. Which was true, but not all that nice to hear.

When practice was winding down a few minutes later, Brian called over his shoulder, from where he was already talking to Gabby,

“Don’t forget those TV guys are coming later.”

Yuzu groaned. He had managed to forget again, even if okaa-san had reminded him just that morning.

He’d pulled out of the interview because he was able to go back to Canada earlier than planned, but the producers had taken it in stride and said they’d send one of the hosts of the show in question over.

He told this to Javi, who just shrugged and refused to pity him.

“At least they won’t ask you what’s really so special about your sport, or how it is that a boy wants to get into it, or show you doing a triple axel when talking about quads…”

Yuzu giggled.

“Oh, yes, you often get stupid questions. I remember they call you ice dancer sometimes.”

 _Oops_. That was in the Spanish interviews. Javi was looking at him suspiciously.

“How would you know?”

Of course, he got it out of him eventually, however much Yuzu tried to deflect.

Javi sounded more astounded than annoyed at the revelation that Yuzu was reading his press. Yuzu ended up admitting what his rationale had been in the beginning, and Javi cuffed him lightly on the head, like he used to a few years ago, and said,

“How could I not have been nice about you?”

Yuzu couldn’t help it. He had something to say about that.

“You got a bit less nice.”

A guilty look settled on Javi’s face.

“I didn’t mean it. It just helped, sometimes.”

Before Yuzu could ask what exactly he meant, his phone rang, and he had to leave hastily – physio was early because of the interview, and he’d forgotten about that as well.

 

~---~

 

They’d wanted pictures of Yuzu on the ice after the sit-down interview, and had waited patiently for the synchronised skating team to finish their practice – the girls, who trained when Yuzuru usually had long left the rink, acted a bit shy around him, but were delighted when the camera guy asked if he could film them as well.

Yuzu lingered afterwards. It was bordering on impolite, saying goodbye right there by the rink and letting Brian see the TV crew out, but he managed to pull it off because they were in a hurry (as usual in these cases, everything had taken longer than anticipated) and Yuzu still had his skates on.

He’d warmed up, and shown off a few poses – and jumps, perhaps unadvisedly after the intensive training in the morning. Brian had put a stop to it fairly quickly, and Yuzu hadn’t fought him.

He was, however, reluctant to leave the ice.

Someone had opened the blinds. Golden beams of evening light were coming through the windows, mingling with the pale artificial light of the lamps. The speakers were turned off, the only sound coming from his blades as they cut the ice.

Javi found him there, improvising steps to the music in his head. He continued a little longer, with the awareness that Javi was watching pushed to the back of his mind. He couldn’t help it, though: he angled his moves towards his audience of one.

And of course, he couldn’t resist dramatically sliding towards Javi on his knees right at the end.

“Show-off,” Javi laughed, pulling him up; but then added quietly,

“And not really of this world.”

Yuzu shook his head.

“Not an alien,” he murmured a bit pettily, and Javi gifted him with a tender smile, instead of joking around with him.

His muscles ached from the increased workload they’d had to deal with, and Yuzu stretched for a bit after he got his skates off, hoping to avoid the nasty cramping he foresaw in his near future.

He ended by exhaling, and folding in two at the waist, pushing his hands to the floor.

Javi was half turned away when Yuzu got up, but he’d clearly been staring at Yuzu’s butt. What a shame that he felt the need to hide it.

“Don’t do that, I like it that you’re looking now.”

Fascinatingly, Javi turned an interesting shade of red and coughed.

“I… I might have been doing that for a while.”

How was it that Yuzu hadn’t noticed? _You decided not to think about such things_ , he answered his own question. Sometimes his ability to focus on skating, and skating only, was a little frightening even to him.

“Then I’m sorry I missed it. How long?”

The question had been innocent, but Javi’s reaction was extraordinary. Yuzu had never seen him so uncomfortable. Not even when Yumi had greeted him at the door to the apartment yesterday and, to Yuzu’s horror, had stared him down, as if to say: ‘Woe to you if you hurt my son’.

“Too long.”

Yuzu tilted his head – was he saying, ‘since the beginning’? Apparently yes.

“You had such a baby face then, it was so wrong,” Javi muttered.

Yuzu mulled that over for a moment.

They’d gone straight through the changing rooms and over to the lockers.

He didn’t know if he should be bothered by this revelation.

The locker closed with a decisive thud.

The fact was, he wasn’t.

He stepped back out into the corridor, Javi on his heels.

It begged the question, however…

Yuzu turned around and looked straight at him.

“Javi, how long?”

“You already asked me that.”

Javi looked and sounded both worried and careful, as if waiting for something bad to happen.

“No, I mean…”

He broke off.

_I mean, how long have you been in love with me?_

He couldn’t say that. It sounded narcissistic and like an invitation for Javi to tell Yuzu that he’d changed his mind – an irrational fear he couldn’t seem to shake.

But Javi had relied on their old talent of understanding each other without words. Yuzu saw it in his eyes when he completed the question in his head.

“Oh, that,” he answered, too casually (but it sounded forced; not uncaring).

“Probably nearly as long. I noticed about two and a half years ago.”

Yuzuru narrowed his eyes.

That was pretty much when their roles had started to flip – when Yuzu had become the one to seek Javi out, because Javi was pulling back. A little at first, then a little more every time.

“So now I am in trouble,” Javi said, looking wide-eyed in the face of Yuzu’s irate expression.

“Why am I in trouble now?”

Oh hell, he couldn’t stay mad at him.

Yuzu kissed him, just a quick peck on the lips. To hell with possible onlookers, it was late and the TCC nearly empty by now.

“Not in trouble. Just… why start avoiding me?”

Javi grimaced.

“You were oblivious.”

“Oblivious?”

Javi looked for another word.

“Clueless. Unaware.”

_Oh, right. Yes. Sorry. But…_

“Not ‘oblivious’ to you avoiding me!”

The smile on Javi’s lips was tired and brittle, did not reach his eyes. His voice, though, sounded strong and calm, even as he paused a lot, struggled to find the right words.

“And… I was with Miki, by that point, and I really wanted to keep trying to make that work. You know… when I looked at you, I thought… I thought… ‘hopeless’. And I might have gone on as we had before, but… well, basically, I saw a picture of us from the year before and panicked.”

He pulled Yuzu into a hug, just like that, here in the corridor, as if trying to physically make up for those other times.

“What picture?” Yuzu prompted, his voice muffled by Javi’s training jacket. He made no move to pull away.

“Come.”

Javi let go, then pulled him by the hand, out into the by now half-dark garden, to that spot where they’d sat on the first day together. It felt so long ago now (two weeks only, in reality).

Once there, he said,

“That’s better, I kept looking over my shoulder.”

 _Would it be so bad, if people saw us and put two and two together?_ Announcing it was another matter, and Yuzu would have probably thought a bit differently if they were in Japan right now, where the press could get hold of him at any given moment. Here, though, in this familiar, safe space, it would be alright to just be themselves, wouldn’t it?

But he kept quiet for now, and Javi went back to the topic at hand.

“It was just so clear in that picture, so out in the open, and I thought at the time that you didn’t care all that much about me.”

It made Yuzu flinch; but fair enough, he had been… _oblivious_. Javi’s remark about not caring, though… well, he might have come off as a bit selfish; if only because, for him, every loss was its own existential crisis. That never had seemed the case for Javi. It had taken Yuzu an embarrassingly long time to really understand that Javi was not (or not only) a little more mature and stable, but also a better actor when it came to hiding his emotions; that he needed and deserved comfort just as much as him.

“I thought I couldn’t keep pouring my heart out like that,” Javi was saying.

Yuzu needed to see that picture. Now.

“Do you have it?”

Javi smiled wryly.

“Of course I have it. I can be a masochist just as well as the next guy. It was my ‘keep away from Yuzu’-picture.”

“Then I hate it already.”

But that wasn’t true, Yuzu found out when Javi pulled out his phone and showed it to him.

It was from Shanghai. That stupid teary moment. Retroactively, he hated the tears even more, because, through the blur, he’d managed to miss how Javi had looked at him.

“Oh, Javi.”

Yuzu switched to Japanese.

“ _I ask for forgiveness. I hurt you carelessly_.”

He thought about all the times he’d drawn Javi into hugs, put an arm around his shoulder, showed off just for him in training (that was Yuzuru Hanyū’s way of flirting, he realised with a start), and had not understood at all why Javi was suddenly reluctant to be close to him.

Javi had a deep frown line between his eyebrows, as much from Yuzu’s formal posture as from trying to parse the statement.

“ _No, no…_ ”

He started in Spanish, then caught himself.

“You didn’t know.”

His accent was thick, the ‘i’ drawn out.

“Then forgive me for my blindness.”

Javi just shook his head.

“There’s nothing to forgive, Yuzu,” he said earnestly, and buried his face in Yuzu’s neck, mouthing a kiss there that sent shivers down his spine.

 

~---~

 

In spite of what he’d told Brian, the fast-approaching date of Javi’s flight, circled red in his training diary, felt like an impending doom.

Javi, paradoxically, was getting more hopeful, more optimistic.

“Are you happy to be rid of me soon?” Yuzu asked him peevishly.

For a long time, the only answer he received was a slow-blinking stare. Then,

“What? Yuzu, just… what?”

“You leave in three days, and you look happy about it.”

They were sitting on a park bench, _in public_ , and Javi simply took hold of both of his hands and kissed him full on the mouth.

Yuzu didn’t even think to protest.

“You want to know what makes me happy?” Javi whispered, pulling back only the slightest amount.

“That you’ll be with me in Spain in four weeks’ time, then I in Toronto two weeks after that, then…”

“I get it,” Yuzu interrupted, “my plan is genius.”

Javi proceeded to stroke a hand through his hair, instead of answering. He sighed when Yuzu shifted away, but only to drop his head to Javi’s shoulder.

“And I’m also happy because two and a half weeks ago, I thought you had no interest in me; and I thought you wouldn’t contemplate dating anyway until you retired. _And_ I knew you’re aiming for Beijing.”

Yuzu made an incredulous sound.

“You thought I wouldn’t date until I was twenty-seven?”

“Well, would you have?”

Javi’s voice was soft, his little laugh mirthless, and Yuzu thought with a start that he probably wouldn’t have. He’d never seen a reason to change his opinion about distractions, before. This right here, as much of a distraction as it was, hadn’t seemed to hurt his skating. Yet. He dreaded the possibility that it would, because if he had to choose…

No. It wouldn’t. Even with his now slightly crazier schedule. It would not burn him out, because he drew so much strength and energy from being with Javi. It felt selfish, almost, in a weird way, as if he was sullying what they had by using it to his advantage. But that wasn’t true, he told himself firmly. They were equals in this. All the more so because Yuzu might have fallen out of love with skating a long time ago, if it hadn’t been for Javier Fernández. And on days he wasn’t feeling too bad about himself, he suspected that sentiment was mutual.

“It’s good I have you,” he concluded from his jumble of thoughts, and it drew a real laugh out of Javi. A wonderful sound, especially compared to the pained one that had preceded it.

They sat in silence for a while, which was nice. It was not that they’d run out of things to say to each other; Yuzu doubted that would happen anytime soon. But it was nice to just _be_.

Finally, he broke the silence with,

“You should come to Japan for New Year’s.”

December/January was the only more than month-long stretch of not seeing each other, if all went according to plan.

“Yuzuru…”

Javi sounded regretful, and it wasn’t a good sign that he was using his full name.

“What? You’re free, aren’t you?”

He cranked his head, rolling it backwards on Javi’s shoulder to look up at him; the angle awkward.

“I’m spending too much on plane tickets this year as is.”

Yuzu always forgot that money was a bigger concern for Javi than for him.

“You’ll get the plane ticket for Christmas… no, hear me out, Javi. You’ll get plane ticket for Christmas, and you can be my gift.”

He got an exasperated look for his effort.

“Wow. That was cheesy.”

But he didn’t get told not to do it, so Yuzu resolved to look up flights as soon as Javi was gone.

In three days.

 _Sigh_.

 

~---~

 

“You will stay with me when you come for next training interval, yes?”

Javi looked up at him, over his glasses, startled. It was the last evening, and they were in Javi’s hotel room. Yuzu had just come up from the lobby, where he’d paid for and received the Thai take away they’d ordered.

But instead of opening the containers, he’d asked his question.

Given that Javi was lying on his back on the bed, head towards him, Yuzu was seeing his face upside-down, and it made it more difficult to read his expression.

“Okaa-san will be in Japan,” he added belatedly, but it didn’t seem to help Javi find an answer.

Finally he said, slowly, reluctantly,

“You know, living together in the first months of a new relationship is usually a recipe for disaster.”

Yuzu shook his head.

“No, I don’t know. Why?”

Javi flipped onto his belly, and looked at him fondly. Yuzu was still holding their takeaway containers in his hands.

“It will bite you in the ass one day, Yuzu, that you sometimes have no clue about such basic things.”

What a crude expression. But funny. Yuzu sighed.

“I have you for explaining all that. So, tell me why?”

“Well, because people… I don’t know, they get to know each other too fast, I guess.”

Yuzu shot him a confused look.

“That… that does not apply to us.”

It was fair to say they knew each other pretty well by now, and had sometimes seen their worst sides over the years. This sport they’d chosen made it inevitable, really, that there would be temper tantrums, and lashing out at others, words you might only have meant in the moment and regretted seconds later. They’d had much less of that than others, maybe, but that was because Javi had infected Yuzu with his kindness.

He’d detailed all of that thought process before Javi grinned and said,

“I was going to come stay with you anyway, but thank you for that convincing argument.”

“Bastard.”

Yuzu threw Javi’s dinner at him. The container opened in the process, and a bit of curry spilt on Javi’s shirt, though he managed to save most of it. It pissed Javi off, not because of the shirt, but because he hated wasting food.

It was something Yuzu had known about him for a long time, but he hadn’t thought about it in the spur of the moment.

In light of what they’d just discussed, Yuzu was suddenly apprehensive that Javi had been right in being sceptical about living together. What if Javi got fed up with him after a week? It would be different from the last weeks – they hadn’t been together night and day, every day, as much as Yuzu sometimes wanted to. But was that really a good idea?

“Yuzu. Stop overthinking and eat.”

Despite the gruff tone, Javi was already smiling at him again, and Yuzu forgot his worries for the time being.

After dinner, Yuzu helped Javi pack. He liked packing, while Javi hated it, and in the end Yuzu took over completely. The only thing Javi did was hand him the things that had to go into the suitcases in the order Yuzu insisted on.

He looked down at his work, satisfied.

“Wow. Never had so much space left.”

Javi had come up behind him, his hands encircling Yuzu’s waist.

Yuzu leaned slightly back into him, and Javi’s hands moved to his front.

“No. Leave them there.”

A delighted chuckle.

“Gladly.”

The hands moved back to the spot where they fit so well, and Javi mouthed kisses at Yuzuru’s neck, along the collar of his t-shirt.

“I love this. Your waist,” he murmured into Yuzu’s ear, hands smoothing over his sides, then gripping lightly again, thumbs pressing into his back.

“Because it’s like a woman’s?”

He shouldn’t have said that, Yuzu thought, angry with himself. But he had to wonder sometimes, when Javi had only ever been with girls.

“No, because it’s yours, silly, and you’re beautiful.”

 _I am too thin, awkwardly long-limbed, my haircut always looks stupid,_ the voice inside his head insisted, but Javier’s words drowned it out easily.

They stood like this for a moment longer, until Javi leaned his chin on Yuzu’s shoulder, and murmured,

“It’s getting late. Are you planning on taking the bus, or can you stay a little longer?”

Yuzu turned around. Had he not made this clear? Apparently not.

“I have my bag.” (They’d come straight over from Javi’s last afternoon practice earlier, and Yuzu, anticipating this, had made sure in the morning to pack the toiletries bag he brought on competitions, and some other stuff).

“So I thought…”

He couldn’t continue, because the smile on Javi’s face was like the rising sun – a thing of beauty, blinding in its intensity – and he had to smile back.

“Yes. Stay.”

Javi looked so happy as he said it; maybe happier than he’d looked on top of any podium, and the realisation that he, Yuzuru Hanyū, was the cause, made him slightly dizzy.

Also, it turned him on.

The last days had been packed, especially for Javi, because there were so many things in practice that he wanted to run through, in order to be able to work on them on his own back in Spain.

So the last time they’d done more than kiss, had touched with intent, they’d – inconveniently – been in the changing rooms two days ago. Fresh from their (separate) showers, already dressed. Javi had only put a hand on Yuzu’s shoulder casually, but something had crackled in the air as his fingers brushed Yuzu’s nape, and before they knew it, they’d been clinging to each other.

Wary of someone coming in, they’d moved back to the shower stalls, where they were at least out of sight and would hear someone come into the front room, and had gotten off quickly, hands down each other’s pants.

It had been artless, and not at all how Yuzu had imagined he’d have sex in a shower, but fun as well.

“Fuck, Yuzu, a fully clothed handjob in the shower, what the hell are we doing?”

Javi had laughed a bit high-pitched; that boyish grin on his face that Yuzu hoped he would never lose, no matter how old he got.

Yuzu had expressed his disgust at the ugliness of the word ‘handjob’ (just when he thought English was finally showing its good sides), and they’d laughed a lot more.

Tonight would not be like that.

He trailed his fingertips over Javi’s face excruciatingly slowly.

“Tonight,” he said quietly,

“I want to worship you.”

He’d looked up that word, had searched for a translation of something he had in his mind in Japanese, and this was the closest he’d gotten.

Javi was looking at him as if he’d said something outlandish; then gave him a smile that was so small and beautiful that it hurt.

“Somehow, I thought that would be my line.”

Before Yuzu had registered what was happening, Javi had taken hold of one of his hands and lifted it up to place a kiss on it.

Then he turned it around carefully and placed a kiss on the palm, too.

 _Oh_.

Yuzu stood frozen for a moment. Then, oh so slowly, he twisted his hand out of Javi’s grip, brought the other one up as well. They came to rest on Javi’s shoulders, and Yuzu pushed himself up a bit to press a kiss to Javi’s forehead.

Javi’s eyes fluttered closed.

The glasses had to go next, even if Yuzu liked them. He pulled them off carefully, and placed them on the nightstand, neatly folded up.

When he turned back, Javi hadn’t moved, his eyes still closed.

Yuzu smiled at the sight.

He stepped in closer, watching Javi’s lips curve upwards as he felt Yuzu’s presence.

A second later, Yuzu had buried his hands in Javi’s locks, which were just getting long enough now for something like this, and Javi’s eyes flew open.

Their breaths mingled as they stared at each other, until Yuzu closed the distance, and sparks flew. The kiss was hungry, so hungry, but gentle at the same time through sheer willpower.

A slow but intense music.

It was a heady feeling, to sense Javi’s impatience mounting, mounting, until he broke the kiss with a frustrated little noise at the back of his throat.

“Yuzu…”

His name had a heavy Spanish lilt to it right now – it sounded almost but not quite as if it should begin with a ‘d’. Strange, but lovely.

“Hm…?”

“Clothes off. Now.”

Javi’s eyes were dark with arousal.

“Stay still,” Yuzu ordered, and began to undress him. Slowly. There was another protesting noise from Javi, that he quickly cut off, looking embarrassed. Yuzu almost told him that he shouldn’t do that, but then didn’t. It was very hot, seeing Javi as he tried to hold back, but was betrayed now and then by a jumping muscle, or the twitch of a hand. One hand even darted forward when Yuzu pulled his own t-shirt off. It was quickly snatched up and placed back by Javi’s side.

‘Time for that later’, Yuzu said with his eyes, and went back to work.

Every new sliver of revealed skin was traced by fingertips, kissed with the lightest of touches, always settling on a new spot, until Javi stepped out of his trousers and underwear, and stood there, naked and erect.

Yuzu sank to his knees.

The floor was hard and cold, and his knees, like most parts of him by this point, had seen their fair share of injuries, but Yuzu refused to break the moment for his own comfort.

Javi was staring down at him, dazed and a bit unbelieving, and Yuzu leaned forward and darted his tongue out to lick at the head of Javi’s cock, swirled his tongue around it, brought up a hand to…

“Wait.”

That one word sounded wrecked, stuttering, but Javi was pulling back.

“You’re in pain.”

Yuzu looked up at him, annoyed at him for breaking the spell, and annoyed with himself for having shown the pain somehow with the lines of his body, when it had been negligible.

“Fine,” he huffed, jumped up, got a pillow from the bed, sank back down again.

“It’s scary when you ignore the pain.”

This didn’t sound like a new revelation, more like something Javi had spent way too much time thinking about.

“We are not talking about this now. I was about to give you a… blowjob.”

The moue of distaste at the word made Javi laugh breathlessly.

“Fair enough. Go ahead.”

His tone held a bit of a challenge, and Yuzu took it up readily. He couldn’t go as deep as he would have liked, but that didn’t seem to matter. His lips stretched and he sucked; distantly realising that it was a turn on to have his mouth full like this. In no time, Javi’s thighs started to tremble, and Yuzu pulled back for a second, pushed him towards the bed, so he could sit down, then went right back to what he’d been doing.

Javi’s dick was still glistening with spit; the head an angry red.

Yuzu placed a hand on his hip, then on his abdomen, fascinated by the play of the muscles beneath it.

The world moved to the rhythm of heavy breaths, going faster and faster.

Hands tangled in his hair and yanked sharply.

Yuzu looked up; not pulling off. Javi’s eyes, almost all pupil, got impossibly wider at the visual.

“It doesn’t taste good,” he whispered, but did not push him away.

In what would have been a smile without his mouth full, Yuzu’s lips strained slightly upwards at the corners. Without breaking eye contact, he pushed himself down swiftly, further than he’d managed before, his throat muscles convulsing around the intrusion.

Javi’s hips snapped forward with a cry, making Yuzu’s eyes water and his mouth fill with bitter saltiness.

He swallowed. It didn’t taste good, but he wanted it all the same.

Harsh pants still filled the room, now slowing down, and Yuzu scrambled up from the floor, until he could look down at Javi, who’d let himself fall backwards onto his bed.

Yuzu felt triumphant; the feeling similar to the dizzying rush of a win.

Heavily-lidded eyes fluttered open, and Yuzu let Javi see the expression on his face for a moment, hiding nothing. Then he carefully sank down, resting his head on Javi’s heaving chest.

“You’re still wearing clothes,” was the first thing Javi said a while later, sounding bewildered. Yuzu was all too aware of that fact, his erection straining his black jeans uncomfortably. They managed to pull the rest of his clothes off without really moving. Yuzu twisted his body into a strange position in order to get ahold of his socks. He hissed as his erection brushed against the edge of the bed.

Javi’s hands moved down his back with purpose, settling on his ass cheeks, squeezing lightly. A jolt went through Yuzu’s body, and the noise that went along with it was promptly mistaken for pain. Javi took his hands away, and that action really _was_ painful.

“Bruised?” he asked, and Yuzu couldn’t help it, his reply sounded a bit hysterical.

“No. No! Feels so good. Put them back!”

“All right, all right,” Javi soothed, his hand returning, one finger pushing a bit into the cleft.

“Please. _Please_.”

Yuzu was frantic; his body telling him it had craved this for so long, _so_ long, and would refuse to be ignored now. His English was falling apart as he babbled on helplessly, though he wasn’t sure he could be more coherent in Japanese right now.

“I… touch there, uh, at night… fingers… two fingers… three fingers… think of you…”

“Fuck, Yuzu…”

Javi’s fingers were spreading and pushing and prodding and… slipping in just a little.

“Lube!” Yuzu half moaned, half hissed, with a loud exclamation point at the end.

“Shit, sorry, yes…”

He was dumped unceremoniously on his back as Javi jumped off the bed.

“In my bag… on the left, second side pocket”, Yuzu managed to string together, now that he wasn’t being touched.

There was the buzzing sound of a zipper, then the crackling noise of Javi’s hand closing around a condom wrapper.

Then nothing.

Yuzu propped himself up on his elbows and saw Javi staring at the condom like he had never seen one before; the bottle of lube in his other hand.

“Where you think this was going?” Yuzu asked quietly, equal parts annoyed and apprehensive about Javi’s strange reaction; his arousal momentarily fading into the background.

The look he received was paired with a rueful little smile.

“I wasn’t thinking at all.”

_Well then I guess it’s a shame you didn’t keep doing that._

“Javi…”

Yuzu’s voice sounded ugly and whining to his own ears, but he really couldn’t deal with whatever thing Javi was hung up on right now. All of a sudden, his erection throbbed again. It hurt.

Something in that tone must have done the trick though, because Javi was back to touching him in an instant, the items in his hands thuding somewhere onto the bed.

The touch of his hands on Yuzu’s chest, sides, thighs burned, until they went where he wanted them most, well, second most, and… squeezed.

“Aaah, Javi, Javi…”

The softest of touches followed then, to the leaking tip of his cock, as if to make up for the overstimulation, and, oh, that had been a kiss. Just as Yuzu looked down, Javi looked up, licking his lips.

Yuzu’s heart jumped and stuttered and raced. Javi was going to kill him.

“I want you.”

Yes, definitely going to kill him, if not with the touches, then with those lowly spoken words. Yuzu grabbled around blindly for the bottle of lube; found it; thrust it in Javi’s hands.

“You know what to do? If not, give back. I can do it.”

Javi looked unsure again.

“I have never – “

“Do you want to?”

Yuzu had no patience left. With all that had come before, he was surprised at the vehemence of Javi’s reply.

“Of course I want to!”

“Then fucking do it already.”

The swearword was a carefully calculated weapon, and it hit Javi just as it should. He made a choked-off sound, and ordered hoarsely,

“Turn around.”

Yuzu smirked and complied, because that tone of voice right there he could obey without question. Immediately, Javi’s hands were gripping his butt, spreading the cheeks and, _ah_ , he was blowing a hot breath over his exposed hole. Yuzu felt his face flame with the knowledge that Javi was looking _right there_.

The tentative touch of a fingertip, the sound of the bottle top snapping open, cool viscous fluid touching the same spot, a fingertip pressing in.

A contented sigh escaped from Yuzu’s lips, and he pushed back, tried to draw the finger in. Javi was very quiet, the only audible thing the slightly strained sound of his breathing. As he steadily pushed the finger in, his other hand squeezed where it was lying on Yuzu’s left bum cheek.

“Come on,” Yuzu murmured, his face partly buried into the comforter, “move it in and out… yes, like that… and up a little bit… ah, there… in and out again… you can add a second one soon…”

Javi complied with everything. Silently.

It started to feel better with the second finger, and Yuzu had trouble keeping up with his instructions as Javi began to hit the right spot; and on top of it did once again as he was told regarding scissoring his fingers. He suddenly sensed Javi’s body heat over his back, and then kisses were placed on his shoulders, and on the prominent knobs of his spine.

“Fuck. Fuck, Yuzu, that is so hot, can I add a third, can you take a third, I want to see it…”

All at once, the words spilled out of Javi, and Yuzu could only moan his assent. His cock was pressing into the bedsheets, but even the ache of it was arousing now.

Yuzu didn’t know which language he was speaking, or if he was forming words at all, but he somehow communicated to Javi that he should hurry up and put on the condom.

He heard a whimper leave his own throat as the fingers were pulled out. A few excruciating seconds where he wasn’t being touched, but he needed it so badly he needed Javi right now he needed to know what it felt like he – _oh_.

Huge. It felt huge. And Yuzu loved it.

A bit painful, yes, but he was no stranger to pain, and this was the best kind of pain ever. Javi was panting things like ‘Is it too much’, ‘Tell me if I have to stop’, ‘Oh, oh, can I go deeper’.

Instead of a verbal answer, that might have been beyond him at this point anyway, Yuzu pushed himself as far onto Javi’s cock as he could.

It wrenched a loud cry from Javi, and then he was in completely, and moving, and “yes, yes, yes…,” Yuzu hissed, lest he stop.

He was overcome with the sudden overwhelming desire to see Javi’s face. Somehow, between pants and moans, he explained this, and, rather improbably, he was also able to pull up his legs, squirm and contort himself until they were eye to eye, without completely dislodging Javi.

Their eyes met; and Javi pushed in; and Yuzu’s legs settled around his waist; and the bed creaked as Javi pushed in twice as hard the next time; and Yuzu arched his back; and Javi leaned down on his forearms for a quick and dirty kiss; and his abs touched Yuzu’s cock; and – Yuzu’s orgasm felt like an explosion. Violent, overwhelming, prolonged by the fact that Javi was still pushing in and out.

Until he stilled.

Yuzu tore his eyes open and watched.

 

~---~

 

“I love you.”

It had taken a long time for their breaths to calm, lying there side by side, and Javi’s voice was still shaky.

“Mmh,” Yuzu buried his head into Javi’s side, even if he was disgustingly sweaty.

“Love you too.”

He was so very content.

He was also sticky, and overheated, and dripping sweat.

“Shower,” he decided finally, and Javi grumbled,

“I hate you.”

Yuzu had just known he’d react that way.

“Wow, that changed quickly then.”

Javi brought his arms around him and squished him to his chest.

“No, never,” he vowed, and Yuzu smiled, but pushed away nonetheless.

“I’ve got your sweat on my face, and… other things on my belly,” he complained, and dragged Javi up with both hands.

“Shower. Now.”

Javi stumbled behind him, looking half asleep, and it was the most endearing thing Yuzu had ever seen.

They squeezed into the cubicle together (it wasn’t one of those absolutely tiny ones, thank god). Javi yelped when Yuzu accidently turned on the cold water, and Yuzu laughed at him.

Even the cold water didn’t wake Javi fully, so Yuzu took it upon himself to spread shower gel on him after he’d finished with it.

Javi hummed and let him do it.

Yuzu moved his hands calmly, slowly, over well-defined muscles that seemed a bit sore from training (and certain extracurricular activities), over the expanse of his back, down to where his fingers could dip briefly between the cheeks of his butt. Javi tensed only minimally, then sighed and relaxed completely, which bode well for a bit of experimentation in that direction in the near future, Yuzu noted happily.

Not tonight though, even if his own cock was half-hard again from what he was doing.

It would go away.

But even a partly asleep Javi apparently couldn’t fail to notice that, because he put his hand on it and jerked him off, ever so slowly.

Yuzu shuddered, and leaned heavily on him when he finally came.

Now that they were both utterly exhausted, their movements happened as if in slow motion. Finish washing up, towel off, brush teeth, fall face first on the bed.

Javi reached blindly for the light switch, and they were out just like the lights.

 

~---~

 

This would mark the first time ever Yuzuru Hanyū would be late for practice.

He’d woken up in Javi’s embrace, and had lingered there, knowing full well that Javi’s flight wasn’t until noon.

The feeling of steady breaths against his neck was very enjoyable, and when Javi stirred, there were even more enjoyable kisses, and slow, unhurried touches.

They showered separately after that, in the interest of limiting themselves to the actual process of getting clean.

Yuzu walked in on Javi though before the other had any clothes on, and stared unabashedly, with an intensity that made Javi blush charmingly.

“I need to remember for next weeks,” was all Yuzu gave him by way of explanation, which didn’t exactly make the blush go away.

When Yuzu had finished his own shower, and put some clothes on, there was breakfast – Javi had gone downstairs, and sneaked back with a large plate, as well as coffee for him and tea for Yuzu.

They looked at each other more than at the plate as they ate, narrowly avoiding several food mishaps.

Finally, they couldn’t really draw it out any longer.

They both packed the few things still lying around the room; Javi grinning when he handed Yuzu back his bottle of lube.

One last look around the bathroom, then around the room.

Yuzu took Javi’s glasses from the nightstand and solemnly placed them back on his nose. He followed up the movement with a few caresses and a few more kisses.

Javi pulled him into a hug that was so tight it squeezed the air from Yuzu’s lungs for a second. He wheezed (stupid asthma, always acting up when it was most inconvenient), and Javi relented. A bit.

There they stood, face buried in each other’s necks, neither willing to move.

Until Yuzu lifted up his left arm in front of his face, looked at his watch, and gasped.

“Javi, I really have to go.”

It was 9:55, his scheduled practice was starting in five minutes, and while Javi had found himself a hotel close to the TCC, it wasn’t that close.

“Yes, I know.”

The tight arms around them were reluctantly removed, and Javi took a step back.

 _No,_ everything in Yuzuru screamed.

So, one last kiss.

Well, two.

A long, drawn out one, and a chaste peck afterwards, as they separated.

“Have a good flight.”

Oh, that look in Javi’s eyes; so tender, so joyful and so sad.

“Have a good practice.”

With that reminder, Yuzu hastened to grab his bag and be gone.

He turned one last time at the door, and blew a kiss.

This time, it was returned promptly.

Then he ran.

 

~---~

 

He fell down on the bench beside the rink at 10:10, wheezing (stupid, stupid, stupid asthma) as he laced his skates.

“Hey, take it easy, Yuzu.”

Brian, Mr. Punctuality, did not sound annoyed.

“I’m late,” Yuzu reminded him, stupidly.

“I was expecting that.”

 _Right_. But, to be clear…

“It won’t happen again.”

Yuzu wouldn’t be Yuzu if he didn’t say that.

“Oh, never say never.”

Brian sounded amused, but then a serious tone crept into his voice as he added,

“You’ll have a lot of goodbyes to say over the next year. They might get a bit easier with time, but not much.”

Then, the smile was back again full force.

“Hm, you seem to have your t-shirt on inside out.”

Brian turned away, chuckling, and Yuzu’s face flamed.

He fixed his t-shirt, checked his laces, and pushed off.

The ice welcomed him with the feeling of _home_ , which was very appreciated today.

He threw himself into practice with gusto, because he really wanted to think of nothing else right now, and because he had to prove to Brian that this was not affecting his training.

It worked, though Brian had an annoying ‘I know what you’re doing’-look on his face throughout.

They had the ice to themselves for the first hour (or what was left of it with the late start), then a few others joined.

Yuzu lingered, but forced himself to finish before he was completely exhausted or Brian threw him out.

He got a thumbs up for his discipline, and turned to leave the ice, but heard Brian skate over from the group of girls he’d been talking to about their stroking exercises.

“Hey, listen, Yuzuru…”

Yuzu felt himself tense up.

He hoped this wasn’t relationship advice or something of that nature.

But Brian only said,

“Jason, you know, Jason Brown is arriving tomorrow, and Tracy is not here yet, so do you think you could possibly find some time to show him around a bit? I forgot to ask, what with everything… Sorry. You can just say no, if this is –“

“I’ll do it.”

This would have been Javi’s role, usually, because he loved it; showing the new arrivals the ropes, telling all kinds of funny stories about Brian and Tracy…

“I’ll be nice,” he added, because he knew Brian would have preferred to ask Javi; because, until the recent ‘conspiracy plotting’ they’d done together, they had never really talked about personal things, and Brian thought him too reserved, however much he said he respected cultural differences.

Brian nodded contentedly (he would have clasped Javi on the back), and, perhaps buoyed by that easy success, added quietly,

“Oh, and one more thing.”

Yuzu raised his eyebrows.

“You know, you and Javi…”

_Well, here we go._

“I’ve seen this coming for years.”

_Wait, what?_

His look of shock elicited a slight smile.

“I wasn’t sure something would happen, of course. But you can’t really expect your old gay coach not to pick up on some stuff.”

Yuzu, for his part, wasn’t sure if he was more embarrassed about having this discussion, or about Brian having known before they did.

“And I know this is serious for Javi. You do understand, he’s like a son to me, and – “

There was one fast route out of this discussion, even if Yuzu was reluctant to speak so directly. He took a deep breath and did it.

“I love him. And I will strive not to hurt him; it would hurt me as well to be the cause of it.”

He turned away quickly, and stalked over to the changing room in his skates, not wanting to pause at the benches.

For a second, he mourned the fact that there wouldn’t be a picture of Brian’s face as he’d left him just now.

It would have made Javi laugh.

 

~---~

 

The days went by slowly.

Yuzuru trained, respecting his schedule perfectly once again.

He was nice to Jason, made easier by the fact that the guy was enthusiastic about being able to practice his Japanese.

He found himself exchanging a word now and then with the younger ones; at first because it made him feel close to Javi, who liked to do that, then also because they looked up to him with big eyes and were very grateful for the stupidest little things.

He skyped with Javi often in the early mornings, when it was noon in Spain. It was a good start to the day.

The days didn’t go by so horribly slowly after all, soon he would take a flight to Spain for the _Revolution on Ice_ meetings. He was looking forward to those, actually. They were not only a pretence to see Javi. Well, mainly they were, of course. It would be a short trip, barely worth the long flying hours and subsequent jetlag, if it wasn’t for the fact that Javi would be there.

He was very much looking forward to seeing Javi in person. And to kissing him, and touching him. Oh god, yes, was he ever looking forward to that.

Usually, when Yuzu was in the phase where he was intensifying his training, where nothing was finished yet and on some days, it looked like the whole process of creating a program, and landing all the jumps as planned, was completely utopian, utterly hopeless – usually, at this point, Yuzu would have bad days.

Days where he pushed through with mounting frustration and anxiety, then, as nothing improved, with distress and depression.

He would yell at himself inside his head, he would be barely polite to Tracy and David and Brian, he would cry himself to sleep quietly, so that okaa-san wouldn’t notice.

It happened twice, in the weeks following Javi’s departure, but somehow, it was not so bad. Not so bad, when he knew there was someone thinking about him. Not so bad, when there was someone he could videocall in the morning. Someone whom he did not have to tell that it had been a bad day yesterday, because that someone immediately saw it on his face.

Yuzu was – and his past self would have had something to say about that – a little less focussed. Javi might have said: a little less obsessed.

It felt slightly dangerous, not to spend every waking minute with practice and thoughts about practice.

Because, well, he’d made skating his life. And now he felt more and more like he was skating _and_ living – the two things weren’t entirely synonymous anymore. But that was okay.

No, no, it really was.

Truly, it was high time that Yuzuru Hanyū lived a little.

And loved a whole lot.

 

_Fin_

**Author's Note:**

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> “Te quiero. Oh, dios mío, no sabes cómo te quiero.” - "I love you. Oh my god, you don't know how much I love you."
> 
> "Eres un diablo." - "You are a devil."


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